Tag: business idea

How To Start A Cleaning Business
A cleaning business is highly profitable and can churn massive money if done right. This post tells you what is to be done for starting a residential/commercial cleaning service.

Cleaning is a challenging task in most households. It can become tiring and tedious, right from making the bed to tidying up the carpet. The problem is particularly with individuals who work and are too exhausted to take up cleaning at the end of the day.

Most of us would joyfully hand over the cleaning job to an expert cleaner if given the opportunity.

This huge demand for proficient cleaning services has led to a meteoric rise in the number of cleaning businesses. As a result, the chance of succeeding in this vertical is quite high provided you establish one correctly.

Starting a small-scale cleaning business doesn’t require any degree; the knowledge comes on its own as you spend more time running a cleaning service.

Setting A Budget
Business Structure
Taxation Of Your Cleaning Business
Naming Your Business
Organizing Your Finances
Insurance For Your Cleaning Business
Supplies For Your Cleaning Business
Rates/Models For Your Cleaning Services
Marketing For Your Cleaning Services
Online Marketing For Your Cleaning Business
Find The Right Customers
Hiring The Employees

Setting A Budget

Budget For Your Cleaning Services

The budget varies depending on the scale at which you want to start a cleaning business: residential or commercial. Most companies tend to start at the residential level and then transition to a commercial scale once the the systems, employees and a thorough understanding of the optimal cleaning procedures are in place. Companies offering commercial cleaning services at a large-scale are making millions of dollars in revenue every year.

On the residential side, you’re looking at some basic permits and licensing depending on the state and the entity you want to start your cleaning service in. This could range anywhere from $50-$200 to get going. Basic insurance requirements range from $500/year to $3500/year if you are starting out. It depends on how many employees you have in your company.

The basic cleaning materials in products could range anywhere around $200-$600 based on how inclusive you want to be, and how much you want to cover right away. Initial advertising expenses would be around $300-$200 for a basic starter. This includes marketing materials like business cards, flyers.

The entry barrier is pretty low on the residential side of cleaning services. You could be looking at a few thousand dollars to get going depending on how intensive you want to be.

If you have the cash for add-ons, you can have a customized vehicle (instead of a plain, old van) and what not. Just like any other business, you bring in revenue, grow your business, invest in upgrades, and repeat.

Also read : AirOk – One-Stop Solution for Air Quality Problems

Business Structure

The next step is choosing the right structure for your cleaning business. The two basic business structures common used for a cleaning business are sole proprietorship and LLC. With proprietorship, it’s cheaper and easier to get going. It’s less complicated when it has to do with taxes. Your income and liabilities are tied directly with your venture.

So if something happens to the company or it’s funds, you will have to bear the consequences. If you go the LLC route, there is a shield around the corporate entity that separates you from the entity. Thus, the company related liabilities are limited for you. The business has a separate bank account and separate income.

Taxation Of Your Cleaning Business

Understand how taxes work. The manner in which taxes are filed differs for LLC and sole proprietorship. In LLC, it becomes a bit complicated at the end of the year. You can either do the accounting on your own or hire a professional accountant to take care of the books.

No matter what, if you’re running a business, having an accountant review your books and the year-end process will save you from headaches. If you have a good CPA (certified public accountant) to help you with the finances of your cleaning business, nothing like it.

Also read : 62 Business Ideas With Low Investment and High Profit

Naming Your Business

Naming Your Business

Owning a business with unique names and tag lines stand out and sound larger than they are. It helps a lot in the long run. In order to find a good name for your business, brainstorm around possible names that reflect your cleaning services’ mission. Look up on the internet if you don’t have anything to start with.

Come with an initial list of possible business names. After some time, look back at your list and cross out the poor ones. Ask friends and acquaintances to review the remaining names, get some feedback, and then finalize on one name which resonates with your cleaning business’s objectives.

Organizing Your Finances

You need to have a business bank account. In order to get a business account while operating a LLC, you need to register for an EIN on the government website. You will also need your articles of incorporation which you will get after setting up the LLC.

If you have a bank account throughsole proprietorship, it will be under your name like any other bank account. However, it’s important to separate your individual bank account from the business. This way, you will have an easier time tracking expenses, analyzing income, and understanding how the business is functioning.

Getting a business credit card is important; that way you can get the cash rewards. The next thing is a credit card processor. The easiest one to set up and use is “square” and takes 15 minutes to set up.

Also read : 34 Best Rural Business Ideas For 2020

Insurance For Your Cleaning Business

You don’t need a large insurance plan you are setting up the cleaning business on a residential scale. But getting a bond and basic general liability insurance is essential. A bond is useful if someone pays for a service and doesn’t receive that service.

A bond is like an assurance to the customers. Some customers like to see that the cleaning businesse they employe provides a bond. This isn’t a requirement in every state. A bond is recommended because it helps in landing in high-paying and picky clients.

With commercial cleaning business, a higher level of insurance and bond is required.

How To Start Cleaning Business In India

Supplies For Your Cleaning Business

The sky is the limit when it comes to purchasing supplies for your cleaning business. If you have the cash to buy high-end, high-quality materials, then go ahead. If you can’t, no issues! Purchase a few supplies while you start out, but don’t compromise on quality. After all, you will be using these supplies day in and day out. It’s not like the broom in your house which you use you know once a day or once in a week.

Here is a list of items that you need (at the very least) to get your cleaning business started. The list may be altered depending on the type of cleaning services you offer:
- A cleaning uniform with pockets.
- Window cleaner.
- Paper towels.
- Clothes.
- Latex gloves.
- Duster.
- Sponge.
- Scrubbing brushes.
- Vacuum disinfectants.
- Sponges and scours.
- Yellow sisters.
- Microfiber cloth.
- Mop.
- Bucket.
- Dustbin and brush.
- Protective gloves.
- A little plastic caddy to carry supplies.
- De-greasers.
- Oven cleaners.
- Bleach sanitizer.
- Laundry detergent.
Do not compromise on the quality if quantity is beyond your budget in the beginning.

Also read : Best Business Development Tools For More Profit

Rates/Models For Your Cleaning Services

For residential cleaning services, companies either charge an hourly rate or flat prices depending on the size of the home. Hourly rates are super simple. With an hourly rate, the customers not going to screw around on the price.Hourly rates for residential cleaning ranges anywhere from $40-$100. If you are looking at flat rates, it varies wildly.

The range depends on the frequency, type of cleaning required, and the size of the home. If it is a one-time cleaning, then bump up the flat rate price by around 35%. If it is an intensive clean, then increase the price by around 80% because of the efforts involved.

Successful companies take assignments on both residential and commercial scale. In case of commercial cleaning, you either charge on the hourly rate or depending on the square footage. Hourly rates fall anywhere between $40-$100 an hour for basic cleaning services. If you offer deep-clean services, special cleaning, or anything to do with hazardous materials, you could be looking at 50 per cent to 100 per cent more depending on the situation.

In order to be in the higher end, you need to offer the best cleaning services. And that means delivering the best in value cleaning options, different types of packages, a dedicated customer service to assist clients with any queries before and after the cleaning assignment, and so on.

The opportunity lies in the art of mastering customer retention. So if you do little thing like leaving a couple of chocolates on the bed, leaving a thank you note on the countertop, these customer service gems help in keeping new clients and work as free advertising at the same time.

Marketing For Your Cleaning Services

Marketing Of Your Cleaning Services

The famous one is offline marketing. So many people are spending their money on online advertising and ignoring offline strategies. However, the power of offline marketing is astounding. And how do you execute offline marketing strategies? By completing the cleaning assignments on time with excellent results. Happy clients will play their role through word of mouth publicity.

Little service gems will give them a reason to talk about your cleaning business. And that is the objective of a successful offline marketing campaign. It is pretty cheap when you compare it to how much it costs for one-click on Google, Yelp or Facebook.

Another form of offline marketing is flyering. Getting a creative business card and distributing it door-to-door in a decent neighbourhood is essential fir finding new clients.

To maximize your offline marketing reach, you should get in touch with real estate agents as they can tell you about people who are shifting houses. Moving into a new place means a potential cleaning assignment. Apart from this, target neighborhoods with substantial number of residents. Greater the homes, greater the chance of securing a cleaning job.

Also read : Understanding Customer Sentiments For Marketing

Online Marketing For Your Cleaning Business

There are a few ways to do this. Some are time-consuming but are more effective. Some take less time but are expensive. So a great way to advertise online is with content marketing. Now, it takes a lot of time but if you put in the time, it will be worth the effort.

Share your cleaning success stories online by writing blog posts/articles and putting up genuine testimonials with rave reviews. You can also add videos for each article. Do you know about common pitfalls when it comes to cleaning one’s home? Share it online! The aim is to rank high for organic searches on Google, Bing and other websites. If some searches for cleaning services in the location you function out of, your business should appear at the top of the search results. On-board SEO experts, content marketers, and writers to increase your ranking. Your digital presence must be strong.

Positions you as an expert in certain cleaning techniques and sub-domains. If you can clean stains that other cleaning business just can’t get rid off, your customers should know. Like any other business, you need to specialize in something to stand out amongst rival cleaning businesses.

It allows you to charge a higher price, get better clientele and build business organically online. You can run online ads on Google, Yelp, and Facebook. There are so many people running ads for the exact same thing as you, who are constantly trying to outbid you. The competition is enormous.

Content marketing isn’t the only way. You can sell DIY materials online so that people can handle minor cleaning hassles on their own. Start a weekly newsletter on cleaning tips and tricks. And use online marketing to expand your geography. Functioning out of a couple of locations won’t bring in much revenue. Create business pages on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms so that people can contact you through various mediums.

Also read : How to Do Target Market Selection For Your Business

Find The Right Customers

You will find that there are certain customers that take up all your time, money, and energy. And it’s hard to make profits out of such people. On the other hand, there is a section of consumers who pay on time, pay more than the other customers, and are cooperative. Focus on this group and build a trustworthy customer base before thinking of expansion.

Focus on that key demographic that earns you the most money and fire everyone else.

This goes the same with your employees. Get rid of employees who slack off or those who are dragging down the company. On the other hand, encourage the few people who want to see the business succeed, who do great work. So focus on them and nurture such employees. Make sure they are appreciated and understood.

Hiring The Employees

Hiring the right employees is essential to creating a successful cleaning business. If you end up hiring employees and not being a solo enterprise, there’s a lot you need to know on how to hire people, how to take care of them, and how to get rid of the poor ones. So spend a ton of time for finding the best people. Go for those who have some prior experience in the cleaning segment. Hire a few newbies as well so that you can train them to meet the business’s objectives.

Your employment advertisement should detail everything you want in the employee; say things like, “we’re looking for someone who is available these hours, who is extremely reliable, and is comfortable in being in people’s homes.” Whatever your requirements are, mention them.

Put the instructions on the application process. Remove any kind of ambiguity. If you plan to take a video call interview, the instructions should outline the conferencing app you will use.

Vet through the submitted applications carefully. Look for the answers because you will find a lot of people leaving certain sections in the application blank or having a snarky response to some questions. Put those people aside to remove the rotten apples. And then interview the remaining ones to your heart’s contentment.
September 2, 2020
How To Start A Floral Business

Do you love blooms and need a job where you can labor with them every day? Would you like to start a floral business? Or perhaps you’re glancing for an inspiring and imaginative career transformation. This post tells you the precise steps to follow and become a florist. It also discusses the five most vital steps to evolve as a wonderful florist. And how to handle certain mistakes.

You can earn a salary — including taxes and benefits — worth 10% of annual sales of up to $500,000. For sales above half a million, stack on another 5%. On top of that, you can also earn 10% in profit off the bottom line if you manage your business well.

What Is Floral Design?
How To Start A Floral Business?
How To Deal With Criticism?

What Is Floral Design?

Floral Design

Floral design or bouquet pact is the craft of utilizing plant substances and blooms to build a pleasing and equalized texture. Information on delicate floristry is available back from the times of ancient Egypt. Professionally formulated flowery methods, agreements, or artwork integrate the components of floral design, line, shape, space, surface and color, and the regulations of floral design like symmetry, amount, tempo, difference, harmony, and unity.

There are several techniques of floral methods like eastern, western, and European styles. These methods have affected the retail floral business as it is today. Ikebana is a Japanese or eastern technique of flowered design, and combines the three mainline positions of bliss.

In contrast, the European style promotes color and mixture of botanical elements not limited to just blooming flowers, but incomplete parties in many flowers. Western design is historically defined by the balanced, asymmetrical, flat, steep style of structures.

In extension to flower structure, floral design encompasses creating reefs, Nosa gaze, Garland’s, festoons, Bowden’s ears, corsages, and boughs. Stable achievements and factors integrating dried substances such as bark, timber, dried buds, and frequently perfumed inflorescence leaves, leaf covering, preserved entities, and artifacts are widespread areas of the art floral method. These are of reasonable significance since they last indefinitely.

They are yet dominant in season. With the ever-growing attention in the normal world and blooms, the floral industry continues to develop.

The expansion in teaching institutes contributing towards floral design has been enormous, leading to certified design colleges worldwide. The central industry-institute that enables floral design worldwide comprises many institutions and colleges.

Also read : Weird And Creative Ways To Make Money

How To Start A Floral Business?

How To Start Floral Business

Get knowledge

Build and improve upon your knowledge as a florist. Floristry cannot be understood by scanning a book. It can’t be understood from seeing a video, a pair of videos, or a YouTube tutorial. They will be useful, but you need to get hands-on training from a specialist over a duration of time.

Search and learn from somebody who has business knowledge, someone who can instruct you on all the abilities and methods to become a profitable florist.

You’ll have to engage with legal professionals in floristry who can enlighten you. That’s the category of training that you require to learn to set yourself up for a decent start in your floral business. You should either train in an experienced floristry academy, or work as an apprentice under a qualified and skilled florist.

Find An Enterprise Tutor

Build some business references. No matter how vastly experienced you are, there will be issues you need to seek opinion and advice on. By locating a mentor, a floral organization, or building a network of skilled friends and pals within the floral business, you will have a tribe to motivate and educate you.

And to get feedback from the experts, you’ll have to show your proficiency as a florist. Otherwise, people won’t heed you. It might be what flowers go best with the on-going weather, what raw materials yield the best results, or how to get candle wax off pots.

Also read : 10 Best Ideas For Home-Based Business

Upgrade Your Sales Techniques

No matter what method of floristry you practice or the industry prototype you work in, being able to confidently relate with your consumers serves them extremely well. Conversational skills incorporated with incredible consumer service form the bridge between being an okayish florist and standing out as an incredible, fabulous florist destined for achievement.

Discover Your Flowery Place

Once you have discovered the foundational characteristics of a florist, aim on selling your blossoms and flowers. It’s time to figure out what your knack is, what you like to do, and what parts of the job light you up.

You are only going to find your blend of style and courage by researching. So do you love helping with weddings? Are you excited by utilizing nature into new structures? Don’t hesitate to try modern floral designs.

Why Floristry?

It’s incredible that you have agreed that your career lies in floristry. Ask yourself, “How is attaining a career going to alter you? How it is going to influence your life?”

A promising florist can make it look simple but like most things, there’s a lot to understand and challenging. So you have to be a hundred percent engaged to your purpose and your wisdom.

Having a goal oriented and milestone based floral business aspirations will take you a long way.

Also read : Best Business Ideas for Women

How To Deal With Criticism?

Deal With Criticism

This section is a walk through of the points to flawlessly deal with complaints in the floral industry.

Objections Will Occur, Don’t Take Them Privately.

First things first, there’s often going to be complaints and disapproval. Floral business celebrates and fulfills the big incidents in people’s vitalities. There are increased levels of personal attachment and pressure to most of these incidents.

With floral crafts, it’s emotional. All art is. Not everyone is going to like your method. That’s okay. There is going to be a slight proportion of objections and that is certain. It’s how you handle a complaint that sets you apart.

A complaint can improve you above your pursuit. You can even restore a complaining consumer into a devoted fan if dealt well. A pleased customer will tell 5 people, but a disappointed customer is going to tell 15.

Make Them Feel Heard And Valued.

Make people feel heard; they want to see that they’re significant to you. Speed is the key here. So if a person phones with an objection on a Monday afternoon and you hold until Wednesday or Thursday, they won’t feel respected.

And they are not going to feel like the criticism has been rated. A customer who’s left to rant on something for days is going to be furious and feel embarrassed.

Just pick up the phone immediately, and you will be shocked to see how this small act would defuse the problem. A real-life example validates this point.

Years ago, a boy was helping in a florist and he almost occurred to reply to the phone when it sounded. The consumer on the other end was certainly upset. The florist had delivered flowers to a funeral and it was a close pal of his.

The customer told the florist that the bouquets were nowhere to be discerned. There were no bouquets from the florist at the burial. The customer was extremely furious and was stressing on a justification, compensation, while simultaneously arguing he was going to demolish the florist’s business.

The boy had accompanied the delivery guy who dropped the bouquets at the funeral. Realizing that the situation may spiral out of control, he immediately intervened in the conversation. He explained, “The household of the dead had reached the funeral early. They admired the blossoms so greatly that they inquired for them to be put in the corridor of the church. Unfortunately, the customer didn’t notice the bouquets in the corridor and hence the confusion.”

All of sudden, the customer’s tone changed and he became calm. To top it off, instead of just completing the discussion, he ended up requesting more flowers for an upcoming occasion. A complaint turned into an opportunity!

Responding aggressively or negatively will escalate the crisis and pull the customer further apart.

Also read : 62 Business Ideas With Low Investment and High Profit

Say Thank You.

You need to thank the consumer. Now, your customer appears to you with an objection. He or she has seized time out of your active day. However they have put effort to come to you for grievance redressal. Hence, you should be thankful.

Have Grievances And Protocol

Have a complaints strategy in place. Objections and judgments are going to occur often. Of course the more prepared you are, the higher the number of declarations you restore, the more deals you make, and a greater percentage of your clients are retained.

If you have a complaint agreement and resolution protocol in place, you’ll feel much more relaxed when it comes queries, criticisms, and complaints.

Some examples of such protocols include: having dedicated staff to handle customer complaints, maintaining a website and social media pages so that your clients don’t face any difficulty in reaching out to you.

Also read : 50 Small Business Ideas that You Can Start With

Be a grown-up and acknowledge when it’s your mistake. You may lose the delivery, deliver the wrong kind of flowers, or get the address wrong.

Take possession of the error, inform the customer, and make up for the mistake in some way.

Also read : 5 Ways to Make Money with a Side hustle

What if you have accomplished everything as a florist, delivered all orders on time and that too without any issues? People might still complain and their objections may not be real. It’s not your mistake. You have done everything thoroughly. Well, you can either honor their objection or be honest. You declare openly that you empathize with their satisfaction, but there’s nothing you can do about it. “We transmitted the blossoms to your sister’s office within the time frame we provided you. Unfortunately, it’s out of our control that she forgot to acknowledge it to whatever circumstances.” Be ethical and honest.

Like any other business, becoming a successful florist requires patience, perseverance, and the right mindset. Build knowledge about diverse flower bouquets, decorations, and assortments. Impress clients with your creativity such that they only come to you for any floral requirements.

July 12, 2020
10 Techniques To Improve Your Sewing Business

This post applies not just to sewing business, but to any category of specialty or fascination you are willing to monetize on. So even if you aren’t closely related to sewing there’s something valuable for you takeaway nonetheless.

The garment industry of India is an ₹1 trillion industry. Almost 33 % of it is knitwear production and about 20% of its woven-garment production (both by volume). These are highly exported commodities. About 25 % of India’s garment production (by volume) goes into the export markets, leaving 75 % for domestic consumption.

Here are 10 popular techniques to take your sewing business to the next level. They can be used across domains and businesses.

Time Management
Set Your Customers Intentions
Your Designs v/s Ready-Made Structures
Pricing
Sell In Your Lane
Network
Establish A Business
Manage Finances
Branding And Promotion
Overcome Your Fear

Time Management

Time Management

Time management is the key to success not only in sewing business, but in several areas. Complex embroidery designs require precision and time simultaneously. And when you have several customer orders in line, effective planning is important. Which in turn relies on time management. So make use of remainders and planners to the fullest!

Set Your Customers Intentions

For sewing, are you going to do custom stitching, do measures, work on standard sizing, or something else? You need to set customer expectations and intentions upfront. Take the time to establish those expectations. Grab everything as a lesson, enhance it, and go from there. Set high standards in your sewing business.

15 Small Scale Manufacturing Business Ideas with Low Investment

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Your Designs v/s Ready-Made Structures

You have to decide whether you are going to use your unique designs or leverage marketable patterns as the source of motivation. This in turn is the reason for some people to prefer high-end designers over local tailors. Produce the best designs for your sewing business and establish your brand. Otherwise you won’t be able to expand your client reach and presence.

Pricing

This is crucial. Do not under-price yourself in sewing business or any other endeavor. Don’t undervalue your aids and abilities. Majority of individuals hold the opinion, “I’m going to start and offer cheaper services to get the clients”. When you undervalue yourself, your consumers mould their expectations accordingly. Common held belief co-relates low prices with compromise in quality. So when you feel that your services are of a certain standard or even exceed them, hike your prices. Some clients may leave you. But that’s bound to happen. Those who value quality work will definitely approach you.

If your sewing designs and works are up to the mark, buyers will flock to purchase from you. It simply boils down to understanding the value of your service, the integrity of your product, and appreciating the efforts invested by you.

62 Business Ideas with Low Investment and High Profit

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Sell In Your Lane

It is easy to to accept varied assignments at the same time. Don’t try to go beyond your capacity. Don’t have it hard on yourself by taking every rupee that knocks on your door. You are going to reduce your brand. As you start withe simple stitching and progress over time, your lane is going to expand on its own. There are lots of people who start with skirts and then work on expensive gowns.

There are alterations tailors and bridal seamstresses. They are tailors but specialize in two different kinds of sewing tasks. Unless one specializes in multiple sewing domains, a person tends to stay in a particular domain of sewing/stitching.

Network

Networking Is Important

Networking is important for any business to attain success and prosperity. So network with people and educate them about your sewing business. There are tons of resources online to help you with efficient networking strategies. Your business is going to come from word of mouth publicity so networking with possible leads and clients is a must. Leverage in-person events and sessions in addition to online meetups.

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Establish A Business

Think of your sewing endeavor as a full-fledged business. There are going to be moments that you will have to capitalize, take business oriented decisions, think about profit-loss, and be decisive. While the initial phases might be a bit challenging, you are only going to reap benefits in the end. You get bargains on products and deductions off services. Also, it will help you firmly authorize these expenditures as write-offs arrive tax season.

Manage Finances

Managing finances is a hard job not only in sewing business but in every business. Separate your finances to set up your business in the right manner. You should set a distinct surveying report for your business expenditures. Your accountant or whoever is going to govern your money is going to thank you for it when it comes to filing taxes. It’s something as simple as setting up an unrestricted private checking account and using it only for investments and company expenses.

How to Boost Customer Retention?

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Branding And Promotion

Branding And Promotion

Your business needs to have an online existence. When you are starting a business, you are transitioning from a hobby to a career. You are nearly ascertaining a name to some grade. It’s best to segregate your private and your business social media accounts. Clear up your social media if your posts and content are unaligned with your business. Start your own website and social media handles to promote your sewing business.

Overcome Your Fear

Don’t be frightened. Many issues crop up as your business grows. These are not restricted to financial and mental challenges. And the concoction of all these issues will scare you at some point, even if you have nerves of steel. You are going to make some errors. You are not going to do things right occasionally. There will be ups and downs. There are going to be times when you’ll want to withdraw completely. But continue to remain resilient and sturdy!

July 11, 2020
How To Become A Modern Day Musician

This post is dedicated to curating a business around music. It’s possible to make money as a musician. Nearly everyone has a passion for music but no one wants to put in the full-time hard work and efforts required. There are several music producers and musicians, but only a few are able to monetize their skills.

This post provides a generalized outlook on making money in today’s landscape as a musician. It should provide you some guidance in your journey towards making a successful career as a musician.

Early Days As A Musician
Music Industry Of Today
Create Your Path As A Modern Musician

Early Days As A Musician

Early Days As Musician

Like any other creative career, the initial days of a musician involve immense toil, sweat, and tears. You need to build a portfolio. It maybe singing, playing instruments, or both. It’s important to specialize in a genre or segment. Have a knack for writing awesome rap? Then strengthen yourself in it. Don’t inter-twine classical music with rap then. Same goes for musical instruments. You may know to play guitar, piano, and several other instruments. Ultimately, you’ll have to narrow down. However, if you are proficient in multiple instruments, then go ahead. People love musicians who can play multiple instruments like a pro.

At the start, don’t expect hundreds of thousands of people to go gaga over your songs and creations. Some of your early creations may go unnoticed, but you’ll strike gold with one of them.

Also read : Apple Acqui-hired music analytic startup – Asaii

And it’s about hustling in the beginning. A song you wrote will need several revisions. Late night practice, jamming sessions, and consistent efforts will eventually show results.

Also read : How To Earn Money From YouTube Music

Music Industry Of Today

Today’s Music Industry

Gone are the days of CDs, cassettes, and all that jazz. Today, Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, and other digital platforms rule the roost. One’s entire music playlist resides in smartphones, laptops, etc. People pay for subscriptions to stream music on-demand.

Emerging musicians are utilizing YouTube to the fullest. The power of social media platforms allows them to reach a large mass. All in all, it’s a world dominated by the web, and Walkman, mp3 players, and iPods have become history.

And this is the future of the music industry. Eventually, no one’s going to have audio files in their devices. It will be about downloading or stream music as and when needed.

Also read : 62 Business Ideas With Low Investment and High Profit

Create Your Path As A Modern Musician

Create Your own Path

First and foremost, make a list of all platforms allow to publicize and promote your musical abilities. This includes, but is not restricted to, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and other social media websites.

Want some inspiration and success stories to get an idea? Google Shirley Setia. You don’t need to participate in national level singing events and musical shows to make name and claim some fame. At present, it’s about uploading your music videos on the internet, spread the word, and continuing to hustle in parallel.

At the same time, stay as far as possible from plagiarism. People are quick to sniff out copy-and-paste tunes. And if you get caught once, it’s going to taint your image forever. So place originality above everything when composing any kind of item.

If you have some budget to spend, add in some marketing tactics as well. Paid advertisements on Facebook is one example. Purchase a good quality recording equipment to shoot videos of yourself. While a simple audio recorder built in your smartphone is enough for recording your song, you need to have a good camera for video based creations.

If you are uploading your singing or video on online platforms, don’t fill it with ads in the name of monetization. At start, viewers will disregard your attempts as spam videos and audio clips. Keep it as simple as possible. Take Ed Sheeran as an example; no, you don’t necessarily need to take it to the streets and showcase your skills. Leverage the power, influence, and reach of the internet. It’s the quickest way to display your music prowess to several people at the same time.

Also, think of yourself as a business. After all, you are building your identity in the process.

July 7, 2020
Dog Walking As A Business

Dog walking is a pretty popular business. Many people think of walking someone’s dog as a casual job youngsters do for some side-income. However, this is a huge misconception. This post discusses about the dog walking business—it looks easy on paper but comes with several challenges.

It’s important to note that in the initial month or two, you’ll have to experiment a lot. Walking for 8 hours a day and that too while having to deal with different kinds of dogs can leave you frustrated and tired. So you’ll have to plan your schedule to ensure consistency while building your dog walking business. Here are six points to plan about and act on to start a dog walking business.

Security – Insurance
Criminal Check
Full-time Or Part-time
Email And Website
Word Of Mouth Publicity
Community Groups

Security – Insurance

Protection And Security

Once you have agreed upon to start a dog walking business, the first and foremost action item is to get insured. There are several insurance firms you can reach out to for this purpose. There are different packages and proposals you can rely on to secure your dog walking business.

You’ll have to incur some charges on a monthly or quarterly basis but getting an insurance is totally worth it. The insurance will cover almost everything, from the dog going berserk, to someone on the street getting injured. It’s certainly going to save you in the long haul. Also, plenty of clients don’t take you seriously if you run a business without being insured.

Criminal Check

It’s imperative to get a criminal check done. Since dog walking involves interaction with people of all ages and you’ll be visiting a lot of homes, having a clean criminal history helps. Several junctures will not be at home when you arrive and they will feel satisfied knowing that someone safe and responsible is entering their home.

Also read : Dogspot Startup Funded By Ratan Tata

Full-time Or Part-time

Part Time Or Full Time Dog Walker

Decide if you want to be a full-time dog walker or restrict it to a part-time gig. Your decision is going to impact how many dogs you end up walking in the long run. Not just your income, but the time it takes to build reputation as a dog walker also depends on this decision. You can also choose to walk only a single dog at a time or do gang walks. Though walking a group of dogs gives more money, it’s difficult because the dogs may start clashing with each other. Also, not every dog can go on group walks.

Also read : Weird And Creative Ways To Make Money

Email And Website

Digital presence matters the most today. And the same applies to dog walking. Own a website that provides comprehensive description of your dog walking services. You can have an about page, a contact page, etc. There’s no creative limitation to what you can include in the website. Have a dedicated email id for your business. It helps in having a governed mechanism in place. Any kind of interaction with existing and prospective clients should happen only through this email. Moreover, it brings authenticity and professionalism to your dog walking business.

If you don’t wish to set up an entire website, leverage the power of groups and pages on social media platforms. Get authorization to take pictures or tapes of the canines you handle from their owners. This gives visibility to clients on what their pets are up to during the day. Not only does it help with feedback and reviews, you’ll build a closer connect with the clients.

Word Of Mouth Publicity

Word of mouth publicity is going to be the primary way to expand your business. Though social media reviews help in building reputation, when it comes to dog walking, word of mouth publicity trumps everything. Neighbors tend to talk about their pets a lot. If you can make name for yourself as a reliable dog walker in one street or neighborhood, there’s a high chance that you will resonate in surrounding areas as well. Advise your clients to tell their friends and families about your dog walking services. Make use of flyers and business cards to the fullest. Target veterinary clinics because that’s where your target audience frequents.

Also read : 62 Business Ideas With Low Investment and High Profit

Community Groups

Form Communities

Facebook is a good example about the power of groups. Community groups are platforms where like-minded individuals interact and collaborate. Leverage this groups to move beyond your neighborhood and discover new clients for your dog walking business.

You must have seen people frequently posting photos and videos with their pets. Target them via groups and pages.

Conclusion

If you wish to be a dog walker or want to start professional dog walking business, you need to train yourself in handling dogs and building rapport with them. A dog is a man’s best friend and building this friendship is the key to success as a dog walker.

You also need to purchase the right clothes and gear. The right walking shoes, strong dog leash, etc. are a few items you need to invest in. If everything goes right, people from different areas will approach you to handle their canines. Comment about your experience with a dog walker or if you have been one yourself.

July 5, 2020
What is Customer Engagement?
Customer engagement is the key to sustaining growth for SaaS companies. SaaS businesses must aim to educate and entertain their users to boost satisfaction and retention. You want customers to feel compelled to login to your platform in the morning, during lunchtime, and even before bedtime. You want the stickiness factor. Not only does this help boost user satisfaction, but it can also help your company improve customer retention.

More and more SaaS companies are recognizing the amazing value that product-led growth provides. As a result, user engagement tools have become increasingly important. The goal of a SaaS CEO should be to increase the profit they make from each customer (LTV), and lower the costs in sales and marketing that it takes to acquire each customer (CAC). Measuring Customer Engagement is a key tool that will help you achieve that goal, as it will allow you to increase your trial conversion rates, which directly reduces CAC. And it will help you lower your churn rates, which directly increases LTV.

What is Customer Engagement?

Customer engagement is all about interactions between your customer and your brand. As a result, the interactions that you qualify as an engagement will be just as unique as your business. When you let your customers choose how they’d like to engage with you, you’ll be more likely to uncover the type of interactions that they find valuable. By making it easier for customers to engage in ways they find valuable, you’ll strengthen their emotional investment in your brand.

What is customer engagement?

Some customers will have a deeper level of engagement than others. For example, a new shopper might engage by following your brand on social media and placing an order, but this level of engagement is very different than someone who’s placed 10 orders in the last year and also referred their friends. Finding ways to add value to your customer experience can help you drive more valuable engagements more often. When customers feel like they have just as much to gain from engaging with your brand as you do, you’ll foster a sense of reciprocity that keeps them emotionally connected to your brand.

Also read:
Why is Customer Engagement Important?

The digital marketplace offers customers a greater range of options than they’ve previously experienced. Now, the majority of value is gathered over time through a continuing cycle of commitment and re-commitment. To maintain a customer’s interest, enterprises need to be responsive to change, alert to a customer’s day-to-day needs, and in frequent contact. Customer engagement helps to continually demonstrate your commitment to the customer and allows you to deliver value in every phase of the customer journey.
The importance of great customer engagement can’t be emphasized enough, as it builds and fosters:
- Trust
- Commitment to excellent service
- Better communication
- Healthy customer relationships
- Valuable customer knowledge
- Customer loyalty
Customer engagement is the proof you provide to your customers that you value their success and are always working to deliver more. Remember, friendships endure while acquaintances come and go. With the right engagement strategy, you can foster long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with all your customers.

How to measure Customer Engagement?

You can’t improve customer engagement if you don’t know how to measure it. There are a number of different ways you can calculate engagement, which is why we’re giving you a head start by highlighting the most important metrics to start with. Measuring customer engagement requires that you do the following:
- Identify the key events that you would like to track.
- Track the number of customers who complete a purchase without making an account
- Assign engagement scores to each action in a way that can be changed as your company evolves
- Keep an eye on how often your customers make a purchase
- Find the average amount a customer spends when they make a purchase
- Create a database to store this information, ideally in a form that allows for fast querying, and easy cube-style, cross tabulated analyses.
- Connect this database with other data sources that contain additional customer attributes that are relevant for understanding segmentation
- Compute an engagement score for each user that can be used by sales and support.
- Customer Engagement Score = (w1*n1) + (w2 * n2) + … + (w# + n#) where w is the weight given to a random event and n is the number of times the event occurred.
Relevant read:
Some Promising Customer Engagement Strategies

Send Triggered Messaging

Communication plays an integral role in customer relationships. You’re already emailing customers welcome messages, product updates, and the occasional thank you note. Real-time triggered emails get good results because they respond to subscriber actions and are relevant to them, so they benefit from current high engagement. Whereas routine marketing emails can be more like interruptions and are sometimes rejected as irrelevant.

Let’s imagine that new users who don’t take a significant action on your platform within 2 days of signing up are more likely to churn. You can set up a triggered message to nudge these users to login to their accounts. Below is a triggered message from Buffer. Their system automatically emailed when social media post surpassed a specific audience reach.

Triggered messaging

While routine marketing emails may seem interruptive because they may be irrelevant, triggered email messages tend to have a more positive impact on customers. Since the messages are triggered by specific actions that the customer did or did not take, these messages are more relevant and thus, more beneficial to the customer and more likely to promote engagement.

Award points when a customer makes a purchase

Showing your customers that you appreciate their investment in your brand can be as simple as awarding them points each time they place an order. Polaroid Originals adds value to every order their customers place, making each of them more likely to return to make another order in the future.

Award points for a purchase

By showing their customers they have just as much to gain from each purchase as they do, they’ve fostered feelings of reciprocity that will give them every reason to order from you again.

Must read:
Engage customers through the in-app chat feature.

After working in SaaS marketing for years, it can be easy to forget how challenging it can be for a new user to navigate your company’s platform. Many customers may not be familiar with SaaS technology and may have a hard time successfully using the platform or getting the most out of its features. This frustration can often cause users to give up or move on to another SaaS product they may believe is easier to use. In addition to sending triggered messages with helpful tips, tutorials, and advice, you can also engage these users through in-app messaging to help provide ongoing assistance.

In-app chat feature

Simply establishing the fact that you are available makes your customers feel better. It makes them not just view the product as some pixels on the screen, but as an extension of the people behind its creation: you. In-app messaging is effective because it allows you to speak with your customers one-on-one, helping them solve their greatest challenges. In addition to providing direct assistance to customers, you can also use the chat feature to find out which features new users are finding most difficult or asking specific questions about their experience. You can then use the information that you gather through these conversations to create interesting and relevant content that is helpful for users who are having similar issues.

Encourage your best customers to share your brand with referrals

RUNGUM Give 5 Get 5 Explainer Page

Driving engagement also doesn’t have to be solely between your customers and your brand, it can also be between customers. Empowering your best customers to easily share your brand with their friends and family can not only help you acquire a new one, but also engage the customers you have. RunGum’s Give $5 get $5 simultaneously adds value to the friend that’s been referred to their brand and the customer that referred their friend. It’s this value that will make both customers more likely to re-engage again in the future.

Also read:
Develop educational tutorial videos.

Continuing education is a vital part of SaaS customer engagement. In addition to free trainings and webinars, you can also create video tutorials as part of your SaaS marketing strategy. While you will still want to provide the typical educational assets such as blogs, e-books, and guides, you can also use video tutorials to engage your audience. Videos are stimulating and allow you to clearly and simply communicate your message to users faster than you can in text. Videos are also easier to consume on mobile devices, allowing users to quickly and conveniently access your training videos on demand.
Basecamp, a project management company came up with a series of tutorial videos to educate prospects.

Educational tutorial and videos

If you want to produce video tutorials that are engaging, you need to think about what your customers most want to learn about your software. Consider what your customers greatest challenges typically are when they start to use the platform. Also, think about which features your customers will find most useful and create content around these topics. In addition to the topics that you choose for your video tutorials, it’s also important to consider how you plan to structure the content. To keep users interested, use storytelling methods that will help draw them in and make your content interesting and helpful.

Conclusion

Customers are the lifeblood of your business. To retain your users, experiment with different engagement strategies to improve retention. In the end, it’s important to remember that engagement = retention. If people aren’t using your platform, it could be because they are not engaged.

It’s essential that SaaS marketers try out different user engagement strategies to find the most effective tactics for improving customer retention. You can use the SaaS marketing strategies above as a starting point for experimentation. Choose one or two of the strategies above and watch as your engagement rates steadily improve over time. Also, please let us know if this article helps you in any way.
February 25, 2020
How to validate your SaaS idea before building an MVP?
The best way to validate a SaaS idea before building an MVP is to have the problem that you are solving for. Especially in SaaS, because you aren’t looking to create another entertainment platform, but instead solve a business need for a customer in exchange for them paying you money. So, if you consistently run into an issue and aren’t satisfied with the existing tool set you can decide to go out and build your own.

But before diving in the steps to validation, let’s clarify a few things.
You need to identify a problem and its solution, yes, but a huge part of your guess (i.e. idea) resides in who you think will want to pay Rs.X per month or year to get their problem solved. This is also called “customers”. This is what will make you filthy rich. For example, the initial guess of Metrics Watch was that digital agencies would be willing to pay for Google Analytics alerts, white label them and send them to their clients. Wrong. So wrong. The point of this post is to help you avoid that kind of mistake and avoid building something people don’t want to pay for.

So, you have an idea and a ton of will to take over the world, a market or just have a fun lifestyle business. We want to validate that it’s legit and has some chances to work. Validating your idea is all about risk mitigation.

What needs to be validated exactly?

First, we need to validate that the problem exists and that people are willing to pay for a solution. We also need to make sure that your proposed solution is a good one that people will be motivated enough to use and pay for. That’s as “simple” as that.
Now before you do that you should, evaluate the market. Have you really tested all of the solutions that are currently out there? Then hone in on your pain point. Why is that you don’t like the existing solutions.

Steps to follow to validate your idea

Clarify your idea

Before pitching your idea to anyone else, first the idea should be completely clear to you. To clarify your idea try to answer these questions:
1. What problem would my SaaS solve?
2. Does this problem actually exist?
3. How would my product work exactly?

Then after that, you need to research about the things such as:
– Identify competitors (crunchbase, google, app store, etc.)
– Does your idea exist already? (Google Patents)
– Can you do it better, faster, cheaper?

Brainstorm your idea

The last thing to do is brainstorming to identify huge opportunities to disrupt the market:
– How are people addressing the problem now?
– What disruptive technologies can solve the problem?
– Where is the competition missing the mark?
– See non-competitive products for more ideas

Plan – Narrowing the Focus of your Product

Now after the idea is completely clear, you have to devise a plan for your SaaS. You have to document your assumptions, make a UX hypothesis, set goals for the product and define the MVP of your product. You also have to think about:
– What features are required to sell the product?
– Connect the functionality to the product goals
– Define metrics for success
– Define customer personas

Define your target customer

Understanding your target customers is crucial from the beginning to ensure that your product will be accepted by them. To understand your target audience, you need to segment the different types of buyers. Segmentation can be done based on various factors such as budgets, needs, decision makers, problems and goals.

When starting up your SaaS company, strive to grow with your audience. Keep in touch with your users through email, social media and blogs to know what features they want and get other important feedback about your product.

Sketch – How to Use a Quick Drawing to Determine the Interface

Now, you need to think about the interface of your product or service. To do that, proceed in the following manner:
– Create a sitemap of the product
– Use pen/pad to sketch the interface
– Design whole tasks that testers can complete
– Show the connections between the screens (information architecture)

Test if there is an open market for your potential product

You can use these tools:
1. Google Trends:
  It helps you have a bigger picture of the market where your potential product will land.
  Trend charts can tell you if your target market is shrinking, stable or growing.
2. Online Ads:
  The idea is to create a cheap ad campaign for your future product. This allows you to test people’s reactions.
  In this way, you gain a better insight of the market, as your ads will focus on your target customers. The clicks received will be your response.
Create a Realistic Demo of How the Product will Look and Work

To create a realistic interface, use the following tools to mock-up flat designs for each screen that you sketched
– Desktop: photoshop/sketch or Axure or a similar program
– Mobile: AppCooker or Proto.io or a similar program
– Use Invisionapp.com to connect the flat designs so that the user can click/tap on the buttons and transition from screen to screen. This will give the tester a ‘real enough’ experience to complete tasks and answer questions about its viability

Look for your early adopters

You have several options to find them:
- Ask your colleagues or friends. They might be interested in your idea. If not, they could still help you giving some referrals
- LinkedIn. Go to your connections and browse for potential clients.
- Stalk your target customers via Facebook or other Social Media.
- Forums. Join groups of people who might be interested in your solution.
8) Schedule interviews with your early adopters

Try to follow this scheme to get the best results out of them:
- Validate the problem
- Get to know about the pains of your potential clients
- Validate the solution
- Show them how you can solve their issues with your product idea
- Ask them if they would pay for your solution
If they are willing to buy it, this means your idea is successful.

Receive an evaluation from your early adopters.

It’s the most precious information they can give you. It’s reliable and it reflects reality. You can get three kinds of feedback:
1. Positive response: your idea is useful and people think it’s a must-have to solve their problem. You can go to the next step. Start designing an MVP for a more detailed SaaS idea validation or go finding you first paying customers.
2. Negative response: your idea is not solving customers’ pains. If you pursue it, your future business will fail eventually. Thanks to this valuation you can move on and find a better idea to be successful.
3. Suggestions and recommendations: they can help you improve and develop your initial idea. You can get feedback not only from early adopters but also from people close to you.
However, it’s not 100% useful as they might want to please you and support you.
This doesn’t mean you have to avoid their opinion. Just be aware of taking it with a pinch of salt 🙂

Conclusion

Lastly, just because you do it better doesn’t mean that you will get product market fit. There may be continued refinement that you need to do that makes your product 10x better in order to really grow market share. So, remember, that after you build the right product, you still have to market it. Marketing isn’t about spending ad dollars, that’s advertising. Marketing is really about what is the message that gets your customers excited and want to tell their friends about your product.
And now it’s your turn. Give yourself a try with this strategy and tell me if it works for you as well.
January 19, 2020